


quiet when i'm coming home

by xibal



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon Compliant, Comfort/Angst, F/F, One Shot, i love my bbys so much, it's more a character analysis than actual plot tbh but it's cute ig, uh it's basically just asami being sad and korra comforting her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 22:36:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20347933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xibal/pseuds/xibal
Summary: Where Asami finds a mirror that taunts her with people she may never have.





	quiet when i'm coming home

**Author's Note:**

> i came across this ff prompt while on the toilet, and it essentially reads as “a character sees what their life might have been like if one pivotal event had not happened.” and so i had an idea (as one does..on the toilet) to write about asami coping with the loss of her father. it was interesting and somewhat cathartic to explore not only asami’s characterization, but also the effects of grief and how it could affect the dynamics between asami and korra. but anyways i love my bby gorl asami and i want people to appreciate! her! more!
> 
> also uh full warning but i wrote this at one in the morning in my notes app without proofreading, and i thought it would be a genius idea to post this on ao3. so i created this account and then posted it

Asami wasn’t sure how or when the mirror started acting differently.

She had been applying her makeup, swiping the familiar shade of rouge over her lips when she caught sight of a face she had never thought she would see again. There was Hiroshi, her father, in the corner of the mirror.

Her heart stopped. She drew a sharp breath. She blinked. His portly figure was still standing there, seemingly a mere feet away from her seat at the vanity. Although she couldn’t hear him, he seemed to be talking to someone, hands waving animatedly, grin plastered on his face, though the person he was talking to was cut from view.

Her knee-jerk reaction was to whip around and see what was behind her. But to her shock and, in part, dismay, she was presented with an empty room only illuminated by the lights on her vanity. No one was there—just the messy sheets and clothes strewn about from when she haphazardly woke up an hour ago.

She turned back around and settled her gaze on the mirror, only to see that her father was still there, still talking excitedly, still very much _alive_. Part of Asami thought this had to besome sort of sick joke, some sort of new mover technology that someone thought would be the perfect gimmick to torment Hiroshi’s mourning daughter. But Asami just sat, entranced by the vision of her father. She noted his grey hair, his warm amber eyes, and the glint off of his round metal glasses.

Asami was soon blinking the mist away from her eyes. Whatever trick this mover-mirror-thing was playing on her, at least it had brought her some comfort.

But Asami audibly gasped when she saw herself also appear in the frame, finally revealing who Hiroshi had been talking with. Mirror Asami was wearing the same clothing, albeit her makeup was finished, her hair was done, and her eyes were sparkling—a stark contrast from non-mirror Asami who hunched on the vanity with smudged lipstick, a messy ponytail, and a near-maniacal gaze.

It took a few days for Asami to realize that the mirror was a way to see into another world, a parallel universe. It just so happened that in this universe, in a cruel twist of coincidence, Hiroshi was still alive.

The mirror became a source of fixation for Asami. It was a window into her own private universe, where everything was just so seemed _so _much better. There were times where she would sit stooped on that vanity, eyes gazing unblinkingly at what was happening in that small window of hers, yearning desperately to get through the barrier and walk into the other world. There were times when she would sling a curtain over the mirror, yet she would still lay awake, resisting every itch in her body to throw herself out of bed and yank the curtain off. There were times when Asami wanted to run her throat hoarse with frustration, to wet her cheeks with mascara-laden tears, to shatter the mirror with the edges of her knuckles.

She knew that this wasn’t healthy for her. She knew she should keep the mirror far away from where she could get a hold of it. The mirror had only plagued her conscious with floods of “what-ifs,” “but-hows,” and everything in between. She knew that she didn’t deserve this, She knew that she had to move on.

But, spirits, couldn’t she be selfish this one fucking time?

It took Asami two months to finally tell Korra. Her secret was nestled in a bundle of rambles and jumbled stories, and Asami had hoped that Korra would not catch it. Or if she did, she would regard it as a made-up fairytale or an inkling of Asami’s imagination. But Korra could pick out the details, even in Asami’s rapid frenzy of words. The mirror was honestly unlike _anything_ Korra had seen before—quite a lofty requirement to fulfill. But Korra knew, observing how Asami had taken so long to tell her, that this mirror was something that Asami has held close to her heart—either for better or for worse.

Korra sought out the spirit world, taking the same portal, the same road, that she and Asami had ventured down all those months ago. It was almost laughable how backward everything has become since then, how grief-stricken Asami has been since then. But Korra, out of all people, knew how difficult it was to cope with such a major loss, and how cyclical and tormenting grief can be. The mirror just wasn’t helping.

Korra found her answers in a conversation with a lake spirit. It seemed that some of the spirit’s powers had run amok throughout Republic City after the spirit portal had opened, and the parallel universe mirrors were the aftermath. All Korra had to do was bring back all of the fragments to the lake spirit, and his powers should be restored.

Upon hearing the lake spirit’s words, Korra almost felt a breath of relief. She had seen how the mirror has been taunting and torturing Asami.

Asami’s willingness to hand over the mirror took Korra by surprise. Korra had expected some sort of resistance, some sort of sophisticated rebuttal against her own recount of the conversation with the lake spirit. Instead, Asami had looked at her once, shifted her glance over to the vanity behind her, and simply nodded. There was a darkness painting her eyes and a grimace lining her lips, and it was evident that she was too tired, too battered, to put up a fight. Korra hated it.

After Korra removed the mirror, there was a period of time when Asami wouldn’t talk to her. Well, Asami wouldn’t talk to anyone, for that matter. She had trapped herself in her own work, burying her thoughts in the countless numbers and negotiations and documents that Future Industries required of her. Korra wanted to reach out. She wanted to burst through the door in her typical, rowdy Korra fashion and wash all of Asami’s sorrows away. Korra wanted to do that. But she knew she couldn’t. This wasn’t her war to wage.

The ice began to break a few weeks after the disappearance of the mirrors. Korra was in her quarters at Air Temple Island when she heard a faint knock at the door during the night. Asami had come over, swaddled in a blanket. Her face was bare, but her eyes were puffy and her face was slightly flushed. They had silently arranged themselves on Korra’s small bed—Korra wrapped her arms around Asami’s cocooned body, and Asami nestled her head into Korra’s shoulder. They lay in silence for a while, the dull croak of a frog barely audible from the open window.

“I’m sorry,” mumbled Asami. “I haven’t been the best throughout this.”

“I never expected you to, Asami,” Korra replied. “It’s hard. No one’s good at getting over grief. Don’t apologize for something so out of your control.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to push you away,” said Asami. She turned her head to look directly at Korra. Her brows furrowed as she tried to find the proper words to say. “It’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to everyone else.”

“Remember when I was poisoned?” Korra asked quietly. “It was so hard for me to find hope in anything or anyone or anywhere. I felt horrible, but I felt guilty for feeling so horrible, because I felt like I was taking up everyone’s time. That I was causing so much unnecessary concern for Tenzin, for Pema, for Mako and Bolin, for you…well, for _everyone_. So I left. I left partly because I didn’t want people to worry anymore. Because I didn’t want people to waste their time for me anymore. I needed time to think and come to terms with all of the shit that had happened. So please, don’t apologize for feeling like you’ve had to distance yourself. Everyone gets through grief differently. And it takes time. I can be there if you want me to, but only if you want me to.”

“It’s just so fucking hard,” Asami said, tears welling in her eyes. “Sometimes I think about that stupid mirror and I know I’m better without it. But I just-I just _miss_ him. I miss him so much.”

Korra tightened her grip around Asami. “Hey. You’re _so_ strong, Asami, you know? But it’s okay to feel like shit sometimes, too. I know it sounds unbelievable right now but it does get better. I promise. It gets better.”

And they stayed together for the rest of the night, Korra wrapped tightly around Asami as she nestled into Korra—sometimes sobbing, sometimes sniffling, sometimes silent.

Morning soon came around, and both reluctantly detangled themselves from each other to get ready for their day’s work of responsibilities. Asami let out a soft groan, grimacing slightly as she wiped her nose with a corner of her blanket.

“Spirits, I’m a mess right now,” mumbled Asami as she let loose a soft chuckle. She looked at Korra, who smiled back at her through bleary eyes and a suppressed yawn. “Thank you, Korra. That really helped.”

“You don’t need to thank me, Asami. You’re doing this all on your own. The fact that you’re here is enough.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! please let me know what you think, and if you liked it then share it to some folks who might like it, too :))


End file.
